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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”